<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Inadvisability of Late Night Ice Cream by leoandlancer</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24595069">Inadvisability of Late Night Ice Cream</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandlancer/pseuds/leoandlancer'>leoandlancer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Overwatch (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adventures with Lucio, Gen, That ought to be a genre of it's own</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:06:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,464</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24595069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandlancer/pseuds/leoandlancer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucio meets up with some friends for some celebrity ice cream. He hurls himself off a mountain to do it but the important thing is he arrives and isn't late.<br/>Written for the Solta a Batida A Lúcio Correia fanzine, an awesome Lucio zine that came out last year.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Inadvisability of Late Night Ice Cream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Solta a Batida A Lúcio Correia fanzine is on <a href="https://twitter.com/luciofanzine">Twitter</a>!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The party on the rooftops wasn't planned. It started easily enough, Lucio came home for the most important event of the season, and old friends and family came to visit. There’s a natural progression to these things. Parties were easy when everyone got along with everyone else and liked to enjoy themselves. Hours went by. It was warm out, and all the rooftop gardens were blooming among the lanterns and fairy lights as the sunset, and the party spilled out onto neighbouring rooftops, down into the streets, and Lucio was in his element. </p><p>But then his phone chirped in his pocket and he pulled it out to check the text message. The world abruptly lurched around him. He saw the time and stopped breathing. </p><p>“Hey, man, you alright? You got serious.” </p><p>Lucio forced a breath out, tried not to let panic show, and smiled. "It's fine, it's fine! I'm happy, just have to ah... Have to be somewhere."</p><p>He took the pastry his old babysitter offered him as he passed because it was faster and far more delicious than even attempting to refuse. Pastry in one hand, phone in the other, he began weaving his way through the crowd, careful not to upset drinks, knock over tables, skate over anyone’s bare feet. He smiled and nodded and murmured to anyone who spoke to him without really paying attention to anything he or they said. </p><p>He dropped neatly off the roof before anyone could press him for more information. </p><p>Two stories down, Lucio caught the side of the wall and the alleyway blazed green as his skates snarled and spat green sparks before they caught and held. He turned the fall into forward momentum through ruthless brute force and shot out towards the edge of the building. The music echoed down to him, the bass making the wall under his skates shiver. It made the green trails behind him flare to the beat. </p><p>He didn’t even look where he was going as he approached the edge of the wall; he focused in rapt attention on his phone, the pastry still in hand, biting his lip and trusting muscle memory to keep him from wiping out and grating his face over the stone alley below him. At the wall’s edge, he launched himself over a busy street, moving fast and still accelerating. </p><p>The jump was a long one, and for about twenty feet, cars and trams passed under him, the quiet chatter of the pedestrians never wavered as he shot over their heads. The wind of his flight lifted the dreads from his shoulders, green arcs of light trailing behind. Lucio cleared the street, scrabbled briefly on the corner of the opposite building, and pushed on. </p><p>He sailed over the next street without paying much more attention than he had the last.  He shot out a quick text, (<em>nott latenyet,omw! Younin??) </em> Which was hardly legible or reassuring but he sent it anyway and looked up again. The next block of buildings was downhill, far enough down that Lucio was heading for a rooftop instead of a wall. Not an easy rooftop either, in fact it was hardly ideal-- Lucio squinted, then shoved his phone away, rammed the sweet into his mouth and managed to have both hands, one only slightly sticky, free as he stuttered to a landing on the corrugated roof. His forward momentum checked almost too fast for his balance and he spent an undignified moment pinwheeling before he shot sideways instead of onto his face. He hit the opposite wall with his mouth still full of sweet pastry and powdered sugar and forced himself onwards. </p><p>Coasting through the alley, bright windows flashed past by, occasionally left open, letting him hear snatches of song or the noise of tvs or radios. Candles and lanterns were lit and left on the windowsills, fairy light strings around window boxes of rampant flowers glowing in the night's humidity. It was a maze here, streets at angles with one another, staircases and bridges between rooftops. Lucio was winded but smiling as he wove easily downhill through the brightly painted walls without erring. He had cut scars into the stone here when he had trained to use these skates. He could have navigated this neighbourhood blind, but seeing it like this felt like a gift.</p><p>He dropped down to a crowded rooftop on the next block of buildings with a jolt that staggered him before he leaned forward into a crouch and exploded onwards. The streets made a dogleg here around the steepest part of the mountain, and he couldn't afford to lose any momentum now. From here out this came down to a sprint. </p><p>The rooftop was a seating terrace for the restaurant below, and it was packed. Lucio accelerated, dodged three servers and an errant diner, shot under a long table, and vaulted a serving station without upsetting a single wine glass. A few people recognized him and yelled encouragement as he zipped past. He jumped the box garden at the edge of the roof, shot through a bougainvillea in full thundering bloom, and soared over the street trailing flower petals and green sparks. </p><p>Behind him, he heard a cheer go around and someone popped a bottle of champagne. He heard himself bark out a little laugh, breathless, sure, but real. </p><p>The last rooftop was smooth and empty, a gentle slope tipped towards the mountainside. He cut down, fighting for more speed and his dreads lited and his breath came short. Windows flashed past him on either side, and fireworks burst suddenly in the air above. He wasn't late yet, but it was going to be close. </p><p>He'd actually only ever tried this jump once before. But it was probably fast enough. He could probably make it. </p><p>Lucio was panting, flower petals sticking to his sweat-damp skin. He leaned forwards into the slope of the roof, and there was empty darkness ahead of him. Lucio fought his own sore legs and hammering heart and threw himself forward. </p><p>Then the edge of the roof was under his skates and he lunged forwards and abruptly found himself hanging in empty darkness. A firework burst above him with a crack and a flash of green light picked out the mountainside far, far below. The bowl of the bay was laid out before him, the curve of the beach and the shops and the streets and houses crowding in close. The lights were haloed with the humidity this high up. He couldn't hear the party behind him, couldn't smell the flowers in their overcrowded beds, no more heat cradled in the closely gathered buildings. </p><p>It was empty up here. Cool and quiet, for the first time all day. The air whipped at his sweat-damp skin, lifted his hair. </p><p>Lucio shot through the darkness, surrendered to the momentum he'd built, and fell, his skates scarring the night sky in twin lances of green radiance.</p><p>It had taken a while, but Lucio had learned that falling and flying could be the same thing. The difference lay in how successfully you could stick the landing. </p><p>The block of buildings he was aiming for looked out of reach, but at the last moments, Lucio flipped over in mid-air, swung his weight over his centre of gravity and stretched out with his skates leading. A beat of hanging silence, and then he caught one brightly painted wall and his skates snarled and spat green sparks in triumph. He was less than ten feet above the street when he carved a swath of green down the wall as he laughed in delighted surprise by how well that had gone. He retained very little dignity as he scraped down the wall and scrambled for purchase and only barely managed to haul his body upwards before finding the street face first. </p><p>He pushed up and on with a desperate effort, still laughing and managed to control his course only a few inches above late-night pedestrians. </p><p>He managed to make the corner he needed by sheer reflex, and then he could see the lights of the monolith he was heading for. He caught a break in traffic and dove to the sidewalk to gain more speed, and shot forwards, rode up the side of an apartment building and could see into the fenced parking lot of the rink.</p><p>Cars waiting idly, a few people stood in excited little huddles, a woman leaned on a cart looking interested. No bus. He wasn't late yet. </p><p>Lucio cleared the fence into the parking lot by rolling over the edge.  He landed awkwardly, then found a last reserve of speed to shoot towards the waiting cars in a dead sprint. </p><p>A bus pulled in, and like one single person, everyone waiting perked up and stood attentively, and Lucio gasped out a tiny noise of satisfaction. Not late. Officially. </p><p>Lucio skidded triumphantly to a stop beside the cart, misjudged his own speed, and left twin bands of sparkling green light bursting briefly from below him as he tried for a stop. He came in so fast and so hot the dust he rode over cracked into short-lived flame and burned and sparked green in his wake. </p><p>Then Lucio hit a crack in the asphalt, fell forwards with a yelp, flipped over his own shoulder and came to earth flat on his back. </p><p>"Oh, you did make it." </p><p>Lucio panted and looked up at the mild expression of one of his oldest friends. She still leaned against her cart, supremely unconcerned but smiling. </p><p>"Thanks for being here, Isabel" Lucio wheezed. “I wouldn't miss it.” </p><p>"Sure. You nearly did." She tipped her head towards the bus as it pulled up. </p><p>Lucio jumped up to his feet. He beat dust and cement chips off himself, found an entire sprig of an azálea in his hair and chose to leave it. He'd dropped off the side of a mountain to make it here. Before that, he had argued with a gorilla who could have joined a UN debate pool for time off. The least he could do was look presentable. </p><p>The light above the bus driver clicked on, and the door cracked open. </p><p>Lucio held his breath. </p><p>The small crowd in the parking lot was quiet in the pale orange glow of the light from the bus. Lucio could feel his heart beating hard and fast against the base of his throat. Isabel shifted her weight against her cart and looked on with professional patience. </p><p>At last the doors of the bus folded back, and almost as one, twenty kids piled out in a rush that nearly blurred with the speed and colour and the clean, bright lines of the team uniforms. </p><p>"We won! Our first away game!" </p><p>There wasn't a particular kid that spoke it, but the aggregate chorus of twenty excited under-tens. A burst of cheers erupted from the waiting crowd, and proud parents, siblings, relations and friends caught their respective kids as they were tackled for a hug.</p><p>Lucio let his breath out, a grin creeping up on his face as he looked up from the mob of proud families and friends with their excited kids and found the two coaches grinning back at him from the bus doors. </p><p>"Good game!" Lucio slid through the delighted crowd around the bus doors. The coaches were his age, old friends who he'd grown up with. They'd known most of these kids since they’d been babies. </p><p>"You made it! I thought we could hear you on the mountainside as we came around it." Laila, the head coach, raised an eyebrow in a question. </p><p>Lucio waved her off, "Wouldn't miss it, and I come with celebratory offerings." </p><p>Isabela swept her dreads over her shoulder and patted her cart with a regal gesture. </p><p>"Ice cream!" Laila called to her twenty excited charges, looping an arm over Lucio's shoulder and giving him a sideways hug. </p><p>Her team, and their families all cheered and the driver turned up his radio. Just like that, the party on the mountaintop caught up with Lucio, surrounded by light, music, celebration and camaraderie. Isabel began handing out ice cream and popsicles with practiced speed and efficiency. The ice-cold cart made trails of mist in the warm air as she moved. She made sure the driver was one of the first served in recognition for keeping the doors and windows of the bus open, and the music cranked. </p><p>"I'm glad you made it," Ary looped his arm over Lucio's shoulders too, giving him a grin once he'd secured his own fudge-caramel-ripple cone. "The kids knew you couldn't be at the game, but when I told them you'd be here they couldn’t wait to get home to see you. They still call you coach." </p><p>"It's been a while," Lucio watched seconds being distributed from the cart.</p><p>Laila shrugged, biting into her ice cream with a cavalier disregard for her teeth and Lucio shuddering to watch her as she chewed. "You made, " she declared with succinct pronunciation around her mouthful, "an impression." </p><p>Lucio snorted a laugh, then when he looked up, he found the team captain before him, smiling a little shyly. </p><p>"Here." They held up a cone, cherry chocolate chip ice cream just going glossy in the warm night air. </p><p>"For me?" Lucio took it. He'd planned to wait until after everyone had gotten their seconds before he asked. He'd meant this to be the team's treat. </p><p>"Congratulations," The team captain held their posture very straight, trying to look grave but then grinning shyly. "You're just home from your first away game, too." </p><p>Lucio opened his mouth, shut it again. </p><p>This was his first time home since he'd chosen to be the hero this city made him.  </p><p>"Thank you," Lucio's voice was softer than he'd realized, and he had to swallow, found himself smiling, and looked back at the captain and repeated himself. </p><p>"Welcome home," the nine-year-old captain said, almost formally. </p><p>Lucio couldn't think of anything to even remotely improve that sentiment. "You, too," he managed. </p><p>The captain lost the last trace of their grave expression and grinned. Then, without another word, turned and threw themself back towards the joyful morass of kids cresting a sugar high. </p><p>Lucio leaned into the weight of his friend's arms over his shoulders and enjoyed his ice cream. All around them, kids were being swung around by proud parents, dancing with their teammates, riding around on their family's shoulders. There was a consortium of centre-forwards reenacting a thrilling turn of the game for a circle of breathless spectators. Kids he'd taught, who'd looked up to him, who'd relied on him for protection when their homes were threatened. Kids he supported in any way he could. </p><p>Yeah.  It was good to be home.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! I wrote this a long time ago but forgot that I was allowed to publish it after the zine came out. I still liked it so I wanted to share. <br/>I'm on <a href="https://twitter.com/LeoandLancer">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://leoandlancer.tumblr.com">Tumblr</a> if you're around or want to say hey!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>